Eddie Campbell

Saturday, 17 March 2007

It's St Patrick's, the day of the year when it is customary to needlessly turn everything green, like the Chicago River in this fine photo taken on this day two years ago (courtesy Wikipedia.)I find myself reminded of the great cartoonist Stan Drake, only because in Comics Between the Panels (by Duin and Richardson, Dark Horse, 1998) which is perhaps my favorite history of comics because it is entirely anecdotal and unpretentious, there is this anecdote:"In the late 1940s. Stan Drake strained his prostate while digging post holes and putting fences around his house. Worried about a discharge, Drake checked with his doctor, who gave him some pills to take care of the problem. But the good doctor warned Drake that his urine would run blue for the next week.'Pure blue,' Drake said. 'For about a week I'm pissing blue.'When wordof this phenomenon got aropund the office at Johnstone and Cushing, Dik Browne dropped by to see Drake with a small brainstorm.'Look,' Browne said, 'St Patrick's day is coming up. You're taking a pill that is turning your urine blue. But if you don't take it one day, the color will be weakened. And since you normally piss yellow, and Wednesday is St. Patrick's Day...'Say no more. Drake said. 'So, on Tuesday, I didn't take a pill. And Wednesday morning I let a little squirt come out and, Jesus Christ, it was green. At noon, Dik had gone down the hall and invited everone on the 14th floor of Johnstone and Cushing into the men's room. So, I took it out and peed this brilliant green piss on St. Patrick's Day.'

I'm almost as fond of Drake as I am of Leonard Starr, whom I discussed here a couple of months back. Drake started the Juliet Jones daily strip in 1953, with Eliot caplin writing. It was fast paced, with snappy dialogue. Even though he used polaroid photos for reference for most of the figures, he had a way of exaggerating the histrionics just so, showing the graphic wit of a true cartoonist:Anther quality I love about his work is his very acute sense of place:And the way situations could be expressed very succintly in a single panel:

The above samples are from the first year of the strip, taken from the first of the three archive volumes published in the late '80s by Arcadia of Greenfield WI, whom I know nothing about. Enthusiasts chasing further can find up to ten volumes in Spanish, though of fewer pages each which makes it all overlappy.

There's another technique I mentioned in my piece on Starr that is beloved of this school of strip art and that's the 'talking building'. This fell out of vogue a long time ago, presumably because my generation are so po faced serious and found it too cartoony and unreal. I don't understand any of that and I love to look at it. It's a way of changing scene without a bridging caption and it makes more sense than 'meanwhile back at the ranch' which belongs to an older world that moved so much slower. It makes for variety during a conversation, and also adds to that constant sense of place that I referred to above.It also added a great deal to an overall homogeneity among artists working in the 'photoreal style' (as Prof Mendez has dubbed it), which I like. I've always been more interested in the similarities between artists than in the differences. Thus this little situation appeals to me no end. The first panel is by Drake, from the 1970 sunday page in which Juliet Jones marries Owen Cantrell. It's the opening panel and presumably Drake has used a photo of new York buildings from his clip file of magazine and newspaper cuttings. Coincidentally, Al Williamson, another master of the photoreal style who had to wait until 1967 to get his own daily strip, Secret Agent Corrigan, had already used this same photo for reference in a short story in 1964 in the first issue of Creepy magazine (the story about the cartoonist's assistant, Baldo Smudge).Anyway, compare the two. Stylistically they are interchangeable.

(In Williamson's own copy I imagine he has long ago filled in the annoying gap between the building and the edge of the balloon at the extreme right. If he's online he's probably even now applying ink to his computer screen.)

Friday, 16 March 2007

FROM HELL 1/1

The Blogger problem persists and I still can't upload pictures, so I looked in my drafts folder (where there are always around twenty posts under development) and found one with piccies already up. (Update-it seems to be fixed, but the die is cast.)This is page 1 of chapter 1 of Alan Moore's FROM HELL scripts, with the page of art that I made from it (in this case shown in two 'states'). It wasn't the first page drawn, as there was already the 8 page prologue completed, but it was the first with a title panel. The prologue had required a heading in the style of the infamous ripper 'From Hell' letter and was thus separate from the standard chapter headings. Nevertheless, you can see here that Alan was still thinking of these cinematically, with large blocked lettering superimposed on the opening scene (or 'shot'). I thought it would be more in keeping with the ambience of the work to do it in the style of a bookplate or something of that nature, and had my pal Des Roden work out a hand-calligraphed series of chapter-headings for the original Taboo/Tundra/ Kitchen appearances. When I collected the work together in 1999 Mick Evans replaced those with a typeset version, but in a more funereal white-on-black. I see myself on this page earnestly trying to get all the information in. I zoomed in on the details for the first panel. Those pasted on xeroxes of authentic sweets/candies labels went a long way to establishing the place and period feeling, giving me enough credit in the bank so I could concentrate on the people for the rest of the page. Still, in '99 I was unhappy with the representations of Eddy's face and you can see them all slightly altered in the second version, with the whole figure in the final panel being replaced. This is a standard problem with the first appearances of characters. Later the artist gets comfortable and knows exactly how they look and move and feel. CHAPTER 1: THE AFFECTIONS OF YOUNG MR. S. PAGE 1 (1767 words)PANEL 1.THERE ARE SEVEN PANELS ON THIS FIRST PAGE, PROBABLY WITH A BIG WIDE ONE AT THE TOP OF THE PAGE HERE, SPANNING ITS FULL WIDTH. THE DATE, AS WE SHALL SEE, IS JULY, 1884, AND THE PLACE IS CLEVELAND STREET, LONDON, ONE OF THE MORE FASHIONABLE AND UPMARKET AREAS OF THAT PERIOD, AS FAR AS THE METROPOLIS WENT. WE ARE INSIDE A CONFECTIONERS-CUM-TABACCONIST SITUATED AT NO. 22 CLEVELAND STREET, AND IN THIS FIRST PANEL WE ARE LOOKING AT A LONG SHELF THAT NEATLY FILLS THE SPACE ALLOWED BY THIS FIRST WIDE, HORIZONTAL PANEL, STRETCHING FROM ONE SIDE OF THE PAGE TO THE OTHER. UPON THE SHELF THERE ARE OLD-FASHIONED SWEET JARS CONTAINING OLD-FASHIONED SWEETS: ANISEED BALLS, WINTER MIXTURE, MINT IMPERIALS, SUGARED ALMONDS, ACID DROPS, BON BONS AND SO FORTH… ALONG WITH SOME EVIDENCE TO SHOW THAT THE SHOP IS ALSO A TOBACCONIST’S… PERHAPS A BOX OF CIGARS, OR PARTITIONED TRAY OF DIFFERENT TOBACCOS. MAYBE WE CAN SEE A HINT OF THE TOPS OF THE JARS ON THE SHELF BELOW THIS ONE HERE, BUT ONLY IF THERE’S ROOM. OVER ON THE RIGHT OF THE WIDE PANEL, WE CAN SEE THE ARMS OF A TWENTY-FIVE YEAR OLD SHOPGIRL NAMED ANNIE CROOK, A STURDILY BUILT AND TIDILY DRESSED YOUNG WOMAN, AS SHE REACHS UP FROM OFF PANEL BELOW TO TAKE A FEW MORE PIECES OF BARLEY SUGAR FROM A JAR ON THE TOP SHELF. ONE OF HER HANDS MANAGES TO HOLD THE JAR’S LID AND ALSO TO TILT THE OPEN JAR OVER TOWARDS HER. HER OTHER HAND DIPS IN TO RETRIEVE A COUPLE OF SINGLE PIECES OF DEEP ORANGE BARLEY SUGAR. WE CANNOT SEE ANY MORE OF HER THAN HER ARMS, ENTERING THE PICTURE FROM BELOW. THE REST OF THE PANEL IS JUST TOBACCO AND DIFFERENT SORTS OF SWEETS: I WANT THIS TO BE A PANEL THAT YOU CAN ALMOST SMELL, IF YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN. THE TITLE LETTERING IS SUPERIMPOSED OVER THE LEFT OF THE PANEL SOMEWHERE, DOWN TOWARDS THE BOTTOM.

PANEL 2NOW WE ARE BEHIND THE COUNTER OF THE SHOP, WITH THE SHOPGIRL, LOOKING OUT OVER IT. ON THE SHOP’S COUNTER THERE IS AN OLD FASHIONED WEIGHING SCALE OR BALANCE, INTO ONE OF THE PANS OF WHICH WE SEE ANNIE CROOK DROPPING THE COUPLE OF PIECES OF BARLEY SUGAR THAT SHE’S JUST TAKEN FROM THE JAR, AS IF TO MAKE UP THE WEIGHT. WE CAN STILL SEE NO MORE OF HER THAN HER HANDS AND CUFFS, ENTERING FROM THE LEFT OF THE FOREGROUND HERE. LOOKING OUT ACROSS THE COUNTER AND INTO THE SHADOWY REMAINDER OF THE SHOP WE SEE TWO YOUNG MEN STANDING WAITING FOR THE WOMAN TO FINSIH DELIVERING THE SWEETS THAT THEY ARE PURCHASING. ONE OF THESE, DRESSED IN A MUSTARD COLOUR CHECK SUIT OF SOMEWHAT QUESTIONABLE TASTE AND LOUDNESS, IS YOUNG WALTER SICKERT, AGED 24 YEARS OLD. THE OTHER YOUNG MAN IS MUCH MORE SOMBERLY AND ELEGANTLY DRESSED IN A GENTLEMAN’S BLACK COAT, AND ALTHOUGH HE WILL BE INTRODUCED TO US AS SICKERT’S YOUNG BROTHER ALBERT, HE IS IN FACT THE YOUNG DUKE OF CLARENCE, PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR CHRISTIAN EDWARD… OR PRINCE EDDY FOR SHORT. AT THE TIME OF THIS FIRST SCENE, IN 1884, HE IS ONLY TWENTY YEARS OLD. HE’S QUITE GOOD LOOKING, BUT THERE’S SOMETHING RATHER BOVINE ABOUT HIS EXPRESSION. HE ISN’T TERRIBLY BRIGHT, KNOWS IT, AND FEEELS WRETCHEDLY SELF-CONSCIOUS ABOUT IT. HE’S NAÏVE TO THE POINT OF BEING INFANTILE, AND HAVING LED A RELATIVELY LOVELESS EXISTENCE IS INCLINED TO FALL PASSIONATELY IN LOVE WITH ANYONE HE MEETS. COUPLED WITH THIS, HIS INFANTILE NEEDS FOR GRATIFICATION MANIFEST THEMSELVES IN HIS SEX LIFE TO MAKE HIM FAIRLY PROMISCUOUS… ALTHOUGH THAT’S SOMEWHAT TOO KNOWING A TERM TO CONVEY THE CHILDISHNESS, ALMOST INNOCENCE, OF HIS EMOTIONAL AND SEXUAL EXPERIENCE. HE HAS HAD SYPHILIS SINCE THE AGE OF SIXTEEN, ALTHOUGH THIS WILL NOT MANIFEST ITS WORSE EFFECTS UNTIL LATE IN EDDY’S LIFE. AS HE STANDS WITH SICKERT HERE HE HOLDS A TOP HAT NERVOUSLY AND AWKWARDLY BENEATH HIS ARM, AND IS STARING ALMOST SLACK JAWED AT THE OFF PANEL WOMAN BEHIND THE COUNTER, FAR TOO GAUCHE TO CONCEAL HIS WIDE-EYED INTEREST, OR EVEN TO BE AWARE THAT HE IS SHOWING IT. SICKERT, ON THE OTHER HAND, IS COMPARATIVELY EASY AND RELAXED, A CONFIDENT YOUNG BOHEMIAN ABOUT TOWN. HE HAS A SMART DERBY HAT TUCKED JAUNTILY UNDER HIS ARM, OR IS HOLDING IT IN ONE HAND. HIS GAZE IS DIRECTED AT THE LAST PIECES OF BARLEY SUGAR BEING DROPPED INTO THE SCALE, RATHER THAN AT THE YOUNG WOMAN DOING THE DROPPING, AS IS THE CASE WITH HIS COMPANION. HE SMILES FAINTLY, RELAXEDLY, UTTERLY AT EASE. THE SHOP HAS A LARGE FRONT WINDOW, AND THE BRIGHT SUNSHINE FALLS IN FROM OUTSIDE IN SHAFTS, A SOLID EDGED RHOMBOID OF WHITE GOLD LIGHT AGAINST THE MUSTY UMBER DARKNESS OF THE SWEETHSOP, WITH ITS JARS AND TRAYS AND SELECTIONS OF BRIAR PIPES. FALLEN FROM THE OFF PANEL WOMAN’S FINGERS, THE LAST PIECE OF BARLEY SUGAR HANGS SUSPENDED AND MAGICALLY IN MID AIR, CAUGHT FROZEN BETWEEN HAND AND WEIGHING SCALE. THE CAPTION CAN BE AT THE TOP OR BOTTOM. UP TO YOU.CAP: LONDON, JULY 1884.

PANEL 3.NOW A SIDE ON SHOT, LOOKING DOWN THE LENGTH OF THE COUNTER TOWARDS THE SHOP’S FRONT WINDOW, SO THAT WE CAN SEE ALL THE THREE PARTICIPANTS CLEARLY. ANNIE STANDS, FULLY VISIBLE FOR THE FIRST TIME, BEHIND THE COUNTER, OVER TO THE LEFT OF PANEL HERE. SHE’S POURING THE BARLEY SUGAR FROM THE PAN OF THE SCALES INTO A LITTLE TRIANGULAR BAG MADE OF WHITE PAPER. THE BARLEY SUGAR LUMPS ARE SOMEWHAT MELTED AND STUCK TOGETHER, ON ACCOUNT OF THE FEROCIOUS AND SWELTERING JULY HEAT. ANNIE IS A LARGE AND STURDILY BUILT WOMAN WITH BROAD FEATURES. SHE ISN’T FAT, YOU UNDERSTAND, JUST BIG; ONLY A LITTLE SHORTER THAN PRINCE EDDY. SHE ISN’T IMMEDIATELY PRETTY OR BEAUTIFUL, BUT HER CHARACTER AND WARMTH ARE EVIDENT, AND DO MUCH TO COMPENSATE FOR THIS BY LENDING HER OWN UNIQUE AIR OF ANIMATION AND CHARM. SHE SMILES QUIETLY AS SHE POURS THE BARLEY SUGAR INTO THE WHITE PAPER BAG, EYES TWINKLY WITH FRIENDLY AMUSEMENT AS SHE SPEAKS DIRECTLY TO SICKERT. PRINCE EDDY, IN THE BACKGROUND, HOLDS HIS TOP HAT WRETCHEDLY IN BOTH HANDS AND STARES AT THE WOMAN BEHIND THE COUNTER WITH A MOONSTRUCK EXPRESSION THAT BORDERS UPON THE IMBECILIC. SICKERT GRINS AT ANNIE AS HE SPEAKS TO HER. SHE’S MODELLED FOR HIM IN THE PAST AND THE TWO ARE QUITE FRINEDLY AND RELAZED AROUND EACH OTHER. ANNIE COMES FROM SCOTLAND ORIGINALLY, BY THE WAY.ANNIE: There. Two pennorth on the nail. I’d not want to jew you now, would I?ANNIE: I’m sorry they’re all of a lump. It’s this weather.SICKERT: Nonsense, Annie. They look mouth-watering.

PANEL 4.SAME SHOT EXACTLY. ALL OF THE SWEETS ARE NOW IN THE BAG AND ANNIE IS PLACING THE BAG (WITH A TWIST AT THE TOP CORNERS) ONTO THE COUNTER. SICKERT IS IN THE ACT OF TAKING A COUPLE OF COPPER PENNIES FROM HIS COAT POCKET. BOTH ANNIE AND SICKERT SORT OF PAUSE IN MID MOVEMENT AND TURN THEIR HEADS TO LOOK SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US TOWARDS EDDY, WHO STAND FACING US IN THE IMMEDIATE BACKGROUND HERE, IN MORE OR LESS THE SAME POSITION AS LAST PANEL. HE LOOKS DEADFULLY EMBARASSED, AND, AS IS USUAL AT SUCH TIMES, STARTS TO EVIDENCE A FAINT STAMMER, A MERE ECHO OF HIS FATHER’S FAR MORE SERIOUS SPEECH DIFFICULTY. HE GAZES AT ANNIE WITH CHILDISH, AWESTRUCK ADORATION. YOU CAN SEE HOW PEOPLE MIGHT BE TOUCHED BY THE NAKED SINCERITY OF A YOUNG MAN OF EDDY’S YEARS AND STATION. SICKERT AND ANNIE LOOK SURPRISED.EDDY: A-as do you…i-if I may say so.EDDY: That is, ah…

PANEL 5REVERSE ANGLE NOW, SO THAT EDDY FACES SLIGHTLY AWAY FROM US, HEAD AND HSOULDERS IN THE FOREGROUND AS HE GAZES TOWARDS SICKERT AND ANNIE IN THE CENTRE OF THE IMMEDIATE BACKGROUND, STANDING TO EITHER SIDE OF THE SHOP’S COUNTER. EDDY LOOKS WRETCHEDLY AGITATED AND ANXIOUS AND WORRIED IN THE WAKE OF HIS OUTBURST, FEARFUL THAT ANNIE HAS TAKEN OFFENCE. ANNIE, STANIDNG BEHIND THE COUNTER, TURNS AND GAZES AT EDDY WHILE SHE SPEAKS TO SICKERT. HER EYES ARE WIDE WITH SURPRISE AND SHE HAS A FAINT SMILE THAT IS SLIGHTLY MOCKING, BUT KINDLY. SICKERT, LAYING HIS TWO PENNIES DOWN ON THE COUNTER TOP, TURNS ALSO TO LOOK AT EDDY, GRINNING BROADLY WITH AMUSEMENT AT THE YOUNG CHAP’S OBVIOUS DISCOMFORT. WITH HIS OTHER HAND HE IS PICKING UP THE SMALL WHITE BAG OF BARLEY SUGAR.ANNIE: Why, Mr. S. You do entertain the most IMPERTINENT companions. EDDY: I…please, I apologize. I only meant…

PANEL 6NOW BACK TO AN ANGLE SIMILAR TO THAT EMPLOYED IN THE PANELS THREE AND FOUR, WITH THE COUNTER RUNNING AWAY FROM US, ANNIE ON ONE SIDE AND THE TWO GENTLEMEN ON THE OTHER. TOWARDS THE FOREGROUND, ANNIE IS PLACING THE MONEY IN THE DRAWER OF AN OLD FASHIONED VICTORIAN TILL. IN THE NEAR BACKGROUND, AGAINST THE LIGHT OF THE SHOP WINDOW, SICKERT HAS TAKEN A STEP ACROSS SO THAT HE’S BEHIND EDDY WITH HIS HANDS CLASPED FATHERLY UPON EACH OF EDDY’S SHOULDERS FROM BEHIND AS HE STEERS THE RELUCTANT AND LOVESTRUCK YOUNG MAN TOWARDS THE COUNTER, IN ORDER TO PROPERLY INTRODUCE HIM TO ANNIE. ANNIE LOOKS AT THE FRIGHTENED AND UNCOMFORTABLE-LOOKING EDDY WITH AMUSEMENT IN HER EYES. SHE THINKS HE'S CUTE. EDDY SHUFFLES FORWARD UNDER SICKERT'S GENTLE PRESSURE FROM BEHIND, HIS TOP HAT IN HIS HANDS.SICKERT: Oh, come on, old chap. She's just having you on.SICKERT: Annie, this... this is my younger brother, ALBERT.SICKERT: Uh, Albert, this is Miss Annie Crook.

PANEL 7.SIMILAR SHOT NOW. IN THE FOREGROUND, ANNIE SMILES AND REACHES ONE HAND ACROSS THE COUNTER TOP TOWARDS EDDY, AS IF TO SHAKE HANDS. EDDY STARES DOWN STUPIDLY AT THE HAND AS IF NOT SURE WHAT TO DO WITH IT, HIS OWN HAND RISING ONLY HESITANTLY TO MEET IT. IN THE NEAR BACKGROUND, SICKERT HAS TAKEN A STEP AWAY AND IS IN THE ACT OF SETTING HIS DERBY ATOP HIS HEAD IN PREPARATION FOR GOING OUTSIDE. PERHAPS HE'S CHECKING HIS REFLECTION IN A GLASS FRONTED CABINET OR SOMETHING WHILE HE DOES SO... IN ANY EVENT, HE IS NO LONGER LOOKING TOWARDS US, OR TOWARDS EDDY AND ANNIE. ANNIE ALMOST LOOKS AS IF SHE'S GOING TO LAUGH AT THE AWKWARDNESS OF THE HANDSOME YOUNG EDDY AS HE GAWPS AT HER OFFERED HAND.ANNIE: Oh, a YOUNG Mr. S, eh? I didn't KNOW there was a young Mr. S.ANNIE: Well...ANNIE: Pleased to make your acquiantance, I'm sure.

(note . I no longer have the script for this chapter and this was copied from the From Hell scripts book by my daughter Erin. A proper name looked out of place and made no sense. Checked the book- wrong there too. I changed it. Apologies for any other typos; I've been over it twice.)

Thursday, 15 March 2007

"Bewerr from de Hides from Motch!"

Happy birthday to my fellow artist, John Coulthart, who mentioned that it falls upon this day, the ides of march, in comments when I quoted a passage from Milt Gross' version of Shakespeare's Julius Ceasar a few weeks back. Or to be more precise: "How It Got Bomped Huff Julius Sizzer. Pot Two"***Speaking of mangling the English language, Google translation should be a literary genre in its own right. Here is a blogger's review of the Spanish version of The Birth Caul, my collaboration with Alan Moore, which can be found in English in A Disease of Language."The fault, in any case, corresponds to Eddie Campbell to him, who is who carried out the adaptations, but even so I do not resist to the temptation to give a good pull him of ears perhaps (better I occur it in the beards) to the own Moore by its conception of the writing, that in my opinion derives with too much frequency in the solipsismo. It can that stops he have sense all and each one of the images that propose, but the certain thing are that of as much rhetoric the total understanding takes control very complicated of its speech.Yet, I have left the sensation of which, in spite of its points in common with Serpents and stairs, as it can be that vision between scientist, poetic mystic and of the human life - in addition to the illustrations of the own Campbell-, The Birth Caul is quite inferior to that. And it is it, at least in me opinion, indeed and mainly by these same verbal excesses. As much that the work remains in a pile of dark vaguedades of which with great difficulty some sense can be intuited. And although outside that indeed what Moore tried to do, the certain thing possibly is that for me the Native Amnion continues being a sovereign stupidity that bores to the ewes."For all I know, the translation of Alan Moore in the book itself was as good as this.***And while the translating nodule in your brain is stimulated, let us continue. I don't know whether there's any truth in the story that, during his several days of torture, they held Guy Fawkes against the bell of Big Ben wherewith the hammer for to hitte him, but it was good enough to steal. So in the Batman book by me and my pal White, Batman: the Order of Beasts, which takes place in London in 1939, we built up the business of Cockney rhyming slang through the story. eg. 'I delayed wrapping the body so you'd get a butcher's at the coins beside the head..." "butcher's?' "Butcher's hook=look.' (traditional london slang) 'ah, I think I'm getting th hang of this rhyming slang'. Thus at the climax when the poor bloke tied to the bell shouts 'Elp, Batman, it's goin' to hit me in the niagaras!!' (our own invention) the readers, including Americans, would immediately get the meaning. But we didn't count on the inhabitants of the DC universe not having testicles, so we had to change it to a loaf of bread.*****My pal bob Morales sent this link to an article in the Toronto Star: a professor of Hellenistic history gives his thoughts on 300. Well, no surprise to know it's all very inaccurate, but here is the blow by blow account."And had Leonidas undergone the agoge, he would have come of age not by slaying a wolf, but by murdering unarmed helots in a rite known as the Crypteia.""This moral universe would have appeared as bizarre to ancient Greeks as it does to modern historians. Most Greeks would have traded their homes in Athens for hovels in Sparta about as willingly as I would trade my apartment in Toronto for a condo in Pyongyang."

I can feel one a them 'I-can't-stop-giggling' fits coming on. The mighty Spurge gives us another 300 link:* Iranian movie critics are upset about lack of character development and liberal use of slow-motion in movie version of the comic. Okay, not exactly."So you click on the link and find yourself at the New York Post.IRAN BLASTS '300' DECLARES WAR ON HOLLYWOOD EPIC."The movie "300," which earned a huge $70 million in its opening U.S. weekend, is "cultural and psychological warfare," the Tehran government declared.""Iranians, including thousands who signed an online petition denouncing the film, say it portrays their ancient forbears as crazed monsters led by an effeminate emperor, Xerxes, who is outfought by heroic Greeks in the Battle of Thermopylae in 480 B.C.""Hollywood declares war on Iranians," read a headline in the moderate newspaper Ayandeh-No.A front-page article charged that the film spreads the lie that Iran "has long been the source of evil, and modern Iran's ancestors are the ugly murderous savages you see in '300.' "Pirated copies of the film are the talk of Tehran. "It'll be the Danish cartoons all over again!

Some geezer reported by the NY Times sees it as a critique of the Bush administration.“Is George Bush Leonidas or Xerxes?” one of them asked.The questioner, by Mr. Snyder’s recollection, insisted that Mr. Bush was Xerxes, the Persian emperor who led his force against Greek’s city states in 480 B.C., unleashing an army on a small country guarded by fanatical guerilla fighters so he could finish a job his father had left undone."hoohah, lordy... bring on the next one... Frank Miller as cliche Bond villain. Upsets both sides, occasioning the outbreak of World War 3. When it's all done, steps in and takes over.

"Pulp writing at its worst was never as bad..."

Ah, one of those blessed days when those of us who have inflicted upon ourselves the duty of daily blogging realize we can get by with a few links to elsewhere. But what to use for a title? All the puns on 'link' must be used already. This is Heidi's latest: Linkie winkins from all over

One of the things she links to is the The Daily Cross Hatch interview with Jeff Smith. His experience with self publishing started much like my own:"Part of the plan was that I was going to reprint the collection in books, to always keep the story available. I always wanted to do the big one volume edition, too. One of the things that I wanted to do was change the model of comics and make them restockable. You needed the early parts of the story to always be there, so when number one sold out, put 5,000 more out on the market. The next stage was to go into the trades, and keep those in stock. It was very necessary for people in the middle of the story to be able to very cheaply and very easily go back and get those."I have for some time argued that an explanation of what a 'graphic novel' is should start with this kind of rationale. The market for comic books developed an appetite for longer and more complex and intelligent narratives and the delivery process adapted incrementally to satisfy that appetite (from different kinds of serialization models through to conceiving, completing and releasing a long comic strip in one book, along with the concomitant economic reonfigurations). To just decide that a 'graphic novel' must be a certain size and then go back through the history of the world with a measuring tape, as some are inclined to do, is, I suppose, the kind of simplemindedness you'd expect in the comic book environment.

Speaking of the 'graphic novel' (always to be spelled with the apostrophes), I hate to think that I have become by default the muggins whose job it is to explain the object to the world. In this capacity you will find me in the new issue of World Literature Today which is dedicated to the subject and is available online as well as in print. I wrote a 400 word sidebar for it (page 13) explaining why the term is hopeless. It's the easiest hundred bucks I ever made; it took me longer to write the invoice than the article. (seriously)

Yesterday I was quoting Walter James talking about No Orchids for Miss Blandish, a novel by James Hadley Chase and a series of connections wafted through my head later in the day. It occured to me that I didn't know anything about Chase, apart from, as it happens, having once read the book in question. So I checked Wikipedia (from where I nicked the image at left).

He was "British... at different times... a children's encyclopedia salesman and book wholesaler before capping it all with a writing career that produced more than 80 mystery books. ...after reading James M. Cain's novel The Postman Always Rings Twice (1934), he decided to try his own hand as a mystery writer... with the help of maps and a slang dictionary, he composed in six weeks No Orchids for Miss Blandish (1939). The book achieved remarkable popularity and became one of the best-sold books of the decade. ...Most of his books were based on events occurring in the United States, even though, he never really lived there. In 1943 ... Raymond Chandler successfully claimed that Chase had lifted whole sections of his works in "Blonde's Requiem". Chase's London publisher Hamish Hamilton forced Chase to publish an apology in The Bookseller."PLAGIARISM! rears its ugly mug yet again.

When I read Miss Blandish I had a nagging feeling that there was something more than a little bogus about it. It didn't quite belong among the other great hardboiled crime stuff I was reading. And so I never picked up any of his other books. They were all over the place earlier in the '60s, but they never looked like they were for me. the covers always sported characters who could only be interested in crap like sex and money when there was obviously more important stuff to be thinking about like whether the universe was going to come in on schedule or whether we'd all be et by Galactus.However, his book Just Another Sucker was filmed in 1998 as Palmetto 'a very underrated neo-noir' starring Woody Harrelson and Elizabeth Shue, but I haven't seen it..

Coincidentally, the article on Spillane in the World Lit mag linked above shows Chandler at odds with him too. "Pulp writing at its worst was never as bad as this stuff." (source given) I was finally reminded of a moment in Ian Fleming's Live and let Die where James Bond arrives in New York to find all the hoodlums trying to act like characters out of Mickey Spillane. Now an English author was leading the field. And on his own, very English terms.

*********An email from movie producer Bill Horberg, who happens to be a big fan of Mickey Spillane, five minutes ago:eddiei'm sitting here with a copy of The Black Diamond Detective Agency in my hand.it's pretty damn cool.I think the size is actually great having fretted about it from the beginning.And the colors came out nice although you'll be the judge of that with your artist's eye.It's a magnificent thing and so satisfying to arrive at this moment of completion after such a long journey.Now I've got to keep up my end of the bargain and try to get a goddamn film made!

Tuesday, 13 March 2007

"The sap's got hot pants for that judy."

Talking of reading the other day reminded me of one of my favourite all-time authors, a man long out of print and probably unknown to all my readers here. I picked him up in the first place when I was writing Doing the Islands with Bacchus, and the work is so saturated with his influence that I can't reread my own book now with exprienceing a warm recall of the time spent reading Walter James (biog details hard to come by. guessing ca 1907-ca 1980). He was an Australian wine maker who wrote several volumes of diaristic thoughts on just about everything, but mostly about winemaking and his enthusiasm for reading. They were published between 1949 (Barrel and Book,) and 1957 (Antipasto) and amounted to six volumes, of which I've managed to find four. The first passage here refers to what I was writing about on march 10; there isn't enough time to read all I want to read.

“HOW SHAMEFULLY DULLWITTED other men’s memoirs make me feel. Quiller-Couch says in Memories and Opinions that at seven or eight years he was reading Greek, but in old age he regrets that “real scholarship” he “had never reached, but chased after with envy.” And here I am over forty and my sons both over “seven or eight” and none of us has a word of Greek beyond, in my own case, the names of one or two resin-flavoured liqueurs. I know most of the Greek authors in translation and I know the best of the translations, and that is as far as it is likely to go with me. However, learning is mostly a matter of relativity: few of the folk hereabouts have even heard of the translations. This reflection gives me a pleasant feeling of warmth in the pit of the stomach. I experience that voluptuous complacency which tickles us with the idea that we know something.”

Oh to have written a sentence like that last one. Some time later we find him sitting up reading a cheap crime thriller. This is apposite bacause I have just heard that the first printed copies of my new book, The Black Diamond Detective Agency have arrived at the publisher's office, and I will want to talk about crime fiction before it gets out into the stores in a couple of months from now.

“SOME TALK IN PARLIAMENT of banning the film version of “No Orchids for Miss Blandish” so I made a call on the circulating library; threatened books are usually worth reading and this one certainly is. It kept me awake till two o’clock this morning and that is more than the English poets could do. It is the usual stuff about the kidnapping of the meat king’s lovely daughter by rude gangsters one of whom falls for her. Everyone is rodded-up (armed with revolvers) and there is a lot of slaughter. The gunmen are rubbed out by the feds and the lovely daughter takes a rocker from a hotel window because she feels too soiled to go home. It is all very moral.The joy of the book is its English. The sap’s got hot pants for that judy (the ingenuous gentleman is in love with that young lady;) I gave the Tribune the bum’s rush (I gave up my employment with the Tribune); you’re strung for a sucker (you are a simpleton); the guy’s taken a run-out powder on ya girlie (the gentleman has transferred his affections); I’m getting ya outta a jam (assisting you from a contretemps); Aw nerts! (You are talking nonsense); we’ll be fried (electrocuted) for this; ya gotta snap outta it girlie (you must cease idling, young woman). The people who used these phrases before the feds rodded them were not altogether scamps; they had some nice ways. For instance, whenever the arch-villain wanted a smoke “He gave himself a cigarette.”

One last then I must get back to the drawing board:

"A pretty woman who came to dinner last night gave me two packets of seeds—one of angelica and one of lovage. 'I don’t expect they’ll grow,' she remarked; 'I bought them purely for the sake of their names.' How pleasant it is to meet people as feckless as oneself!”

Monday, 12 March 2007

A Humument

I came by my copy of this unique work through a series of synchronistic connections. It started with one of those Amazon.com recommendations that keep popping up when you're not in the least bit interested, you know: 'customers who bought this item also bought this other one'. Last year two quite different parties at different times had told me I should check out Danielewski's House of Leaves, so in due course, having failed to cross paths with it in my day to day perambulations, I got around to looking for it on Amazon, and found: 'Customers who bought House of Leaves also bought Fate of the Artist by Eddie Campbell'. Well, I don't know how that mechanism works, but it did seem to me that the gods were slipping me a message. So, shortly afterwards when Hayley Campbell told me to get a hold of Woman's World by Graham Rawle and the Amazon machine paired it with A Humument, I was paying attention to the signs and I picked up that one too. I hasten to add that I have gone back to dismissing the recommendations, and Fate has gone back to being paired with assorted graphic novels, but meanwhile the two books arrived together, and I have already talked about Woman's World here.

A Humument by Tom Phillips is a 'treatment' of a copy of the 1892 novel, A Human Document by one WH Mallock, presumably selected mostly for its anonymity. Phillips has taken each printed page of the original and converted it to his own purposes. The process begins with the selection of words and phrases from the text on the page to arrive at a new text. The resulting new text is by turns poetic:'the cakes and cream and- pleasures of life, and- butterflies-and her lips- her voice-and- words broken- And- my real- you'and ribald:'The Princess with effusion held out a wrinkled- pologe- Grenville - scanned the sofa- to see- Miss Markham,- raising her- dress- half parted'

Phillips achieves this construction of new texts first by lassoing the word or phrase and then connecting it to the next by an umbilical cord, making a channel between words and lines using the white of the page. Then the unwanted parts are pictorially obscured. I said lasso there to avoid using the term 'word balloon' which I'd automatically use in another context, because there are places where Phillips wishes to allude specifically to that context as in his page 266, where he has found an amusing satirical text: 'bush- remember- bush- bush- remember that bitter name- remember him- that rude-stare-at- destiny'The pictorial content of this page uses collaged images from American romance comic books. Elsewhere, painterly qualities prevail in a patient accumulation of both the abstract and representational.

A Humument is a continually ongoing project for Phillips. Since treating that first copy of Mallock's book he has obtained other copies and started in again. An example of how he extracts two different texts from the same printed page may be seen by comparing the covers of the third and fourth (current) editions, which I've shown here.The third reads:'my poor little book- very rich for- eyes"Using the same Mallock page as the base, in the fourth edition it becomes:'as I come to- change half- my-little book- airy stories- journey- on---my-friend of-time- till very rich.'

A Humument is usually described as an 'artist's book', a medium which perhaps begins with Max Ernst's collage novels. And within that medium the idea of altering earlier texts is not unique; there are some examples here (the 'Altered Page' exhibition) including somebody's 'treatment' of the Yellow Pages. A Humument has its own particular relationship to narrative. To begin with, the characters of the original novel exist as marine life beneath the typographical surface, their movements occasionally catching the light by way of a name selected by Phillips for his new texts. But there is more than that. Phillips contrives to create an entirely new character whose existence is not even hinted in the original. This is Bill Toge (his surname formed from the four-letter sequence found only in 'together' and 'altogether'), a casualty of love stumbling through the book.'The shyness of -toge- he looked- under - her dress- -anemones arrested- him--- and a woman's well poised eagerness"and:'toge- accepted his -thrown value--and recognized yesterday- had to laugh'.This, the underlying source text and a small assortment of visual cues, such as a window that Toge is usually sitting near to, even though there is no cartoonist's continuity about what Toge is suppose to look like, just a few typographical rules that hold him 'together', bind the 366 pages of the 'novel' into a singular reading experience. By the end of it, Toge and his neuroses are real enough. (Phillips once said that when he arrives in a new town he tends to check the phone book in the vague expectation of finding a real Bill Toge.)

For me one of the precious things about A Humument is that it is another example of the exciting developments in the world of The Book that I have written of here already, and of which Woman's World and House of Leaves etc. are also examples. It is occurring in the blurred areas between things. Phillips took a cheap printed novel and made it into an artist's book, foregrounding the aesthetics of painterly surface and of poetry. But in reintroducing narrative and character and incident, however loosely, he has gone halfway to reconverting it back into a novel, a different novel. A different kind of novel altogether, with pictures. For its daring in just existing, this book wins my respect, but for its sense of HUMour and its sense of the HUMan I will be keeping on my shelf as long as I have a shelf.'go into the world toge- sing our times and seasons,- sing of childhood,- twilight- swing- toge- in the- opera- they- forgot'

Sunday, 11 March 2007

The hyphen in Antarctic

Here is a passage from a precious artifact on the Campbell bookshelf, Ten Ever Lovin' Blue eyed Years with Pogo. I believe it's a reprint circa 1970 of the 1959 book. Whenever I take it down for a browse I always want to kick my own arse for letting it get damaged along the page edges while in my suitcase a few years back, but then I start reading and forget all about that. Life is too short.Walt Kelly telling an anecdote as only Walt Kelly could:"I recall one time having trouble with the hyphen in “Antarctic.” I was bucking a deadline with a political cartoon that had a lot of snow in it. (It’s easy to draw snow fast as long as it is not falling snow. Always draw snow already fallen and leave it lay there. Don’t mess around with it. Beautiful white space in a drawing is a joy to the eye and saves time.) the drawing needed the word “Antarctic.” Now, “Arctic” and “Antarctic are two target words, so to speak. You remember that there is a “c” after the “r” and you sort of spell around the “c.” It’s like firing at the fence and drawing the target around the bullet hole. Well, on this day I made the “c” all right, but as I worked outward from that point, my thoughts on the drawing, on the deadline, on lunch, I discovered that I was putting a hyphen between the first “t” and the following “a.”A cartoonist gets preoccupied and loses track. Spelling and drawing all at once are like marriage, like tap dancing while playing the piano, like Dr Johnson’s dog that walked on its hind legs. The job is not done well, but it is a miracle that it is done at all. There might be justification for this hyphen. Off I went to the dictionary- sure enough, no hyphen. Back to the drawing board. Erase the whole thing. Carefully reletter it, by now so upset that I go right past the target “c” like a hot-rod past a red light."**********